Theft, no chairs, drunk client... when PR pitches go wrong

August 16, 2018
by John Harrington

The PR pitching process can be stressful at the best of times, but almost all seasoned comms pros have had a horror story at some point. PRWeek asked its Twitter followers to reveal their worst or most unusual experiences.

1) Time-wasting and purloining ideas

Putting a huge amount of effort into a pitch and then finding out it was actually a foregone conclusion and the work went elsewhere. Also, potential client using ideas we pitched after deciding to 'take it in-house' or giving them to another agency. Happens all too frequently.

3) Drunken exploits

10am pitch in a hired room to a now defunct gambling brand, five people present - all of them intoxicated & trying hard not to show it. They stopped the pitch after a few slides to marvel at a v basic PP graphic asking who had created the amazing visuals... it was memorable...

5) At least try to look interested…

Pitching to a national law firm. Not even being offered a glass of water by the seven partners in attendance, who also made no effort to engage in pleasantries while we set up. Having the managing partner reading text messages throughout and 1/2

2/2 then having the audacity to ask how we’d come up with one of the ideas presented and questioning why we hadn’t used it for an existing client (bearing in mind the brief asked for an original, creative idea). One of worst pitch experiences ever.

6) Financial pedentary

Pitch goes well, then silence. 6 weeks later their finance dept calls, asking for a revised budget. This is for a multimillion dollar annual account largely based on headcount (embedded team) and the accountants wanted numbers showing the digits after the comma. No joke.

7) And finally... not a client/agency pitch, but worth a loo-k

Getting six regional towns in to a sell-in about their local @McDonaldsUKNews restaurant winning a 'loo of the year' award before realising every town name was wrong and that no journalist recognised the town I was pitching to them (caveat: this was a decade ago)